Solar power is becoming a popular way to save on rising energy costs and to help the environment. The offer of generous government rebates has had an effect of the amount of new solar installations. Rising electricity costs and the threat of more to come has many people signing up to have a solar system installed on their roof. The most common type of solar system is a grid connected solar system that flows power directly back into the power grid when you don’t need it and flows from the grid when you do need it. The power is generated by the solar panels and then it runs through an inverter, through your power meter and into the grid.
Solar System types
- Grid connected solar system – no batteries as the power grid is used for energy storage and sold to other customers.
- Stand alone remote power solar system – battries needed for energy storage.
The size of your solar power system is measured in kilowatts and should be suited to your homes requirements. Governments have incentives for people to take up grid connected solar power. This helps ease the increasing strain on power stations and cuts the green house emissions. The biggest bonus, for the families who have the solar panels installed on their roofs, is a decrease there long term power costs.
Grid connected solar panels
Pros’ for having a solar power system
- Saving of energy bills for many years
- As energy costs increase this will have little effect on people that get their energy for the sun.
- silent – no noise to generate the power.
- Very little maintenance – just wash the panels if needed.
- If you have enough panels you can urn an income.
Con’s for having a solar power system
- high start up costs – to buy and install the system.
- It only generates power in the day time.
- No guarantee of future grid input tariff’s – price per watt hour is not guarantee in the future.
- If your system is small you will not have a great impact on your energy bill.
- Takes a long time for it to pay for its self.
Loading ...So is installing solar panels on your roof worth while? The short answer is YES! However you must remember that most families would need a 4 kw system to break even or have a small power bill. However some people only need 2.5kw and other 6kw. It does depend on your families power usage and the amount of people in the family.
So What does Solar Power Cost?
The Price does vairy between companies depending on the brand of the solar panels and the inverter.
- The average cost of a 1.5Kw grid connected Solar system is $3000.00 after the government rebate, and it will put out approximately1800 kWh (kilowatt hours) per year in electricity.
- The average 4kw solar system is $13,500.00 after a $8,440.00 discount from the governmentand creates 5780 kWh per year.
While a 4kw system wouldhave a good impact on most electricity bills, you must ask yourself how long would it take to pay $13500 of with electricity bills. 10 years? 5 years? It does depend on your power usage. At the moment the grid feed in tariff is different for every state but it is up to 60 cent per kw added to the grid and the electricity you buy is about 20 cents per kw. So you are ahead 40 cent per kw for your power with a grid connect solar system.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
good blog thanks for the good info
Solar power is great. I hope everyone will use it.
Wouter
solar power and solar hot water are becomming almost mandatory thesedays with the ever increasing rise of electricity bills.
Thanks for your write-up, we’ve put up a lightweight guidebook to residential solar panels on our web site that might be of great interest to your readership.